21 November: Beryl Bainbridge

Today is the birthday of Beryl Bainbridge, born in 1934. 

1. Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood.
2. What we remember is probably fiction anyway.
3. I am of the firm belief that everybody could write books and I never understand why they don't. After all, everyone speaks. Once the grammar has been learnt it is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say.
4. A sensible woman will allow the man to think he is the most important partner.
5. There is nothing more guaranteed to reduce a man to essentials than to live beneath the sky.
6. Being constantly with children was like wearing a pair of shoes that were expensive and too small. She couldn't bear to throw them out, but they gave her blisters.
7. The older one becomes the quicker the present fades into sepia and the past looms up in glorious technicolour.
8. Some people find it comfortable to go through life on their knees, and good luck to them, but I prefer to keep my spine in the position nature intended.
9. I've never been put down by a man, unless I deserved it, and have never felt inferior.
10. Emotions weren't like washing. There was no call to peg them out for all the world to view.